Just Write {138}

I am sitting in the back of a coffee shop, on a love seat. There is a table of men at the front of the place, and a table of women nearby, the wives. One of the ladies turned to me as I was getting settled and told me they have room for me at their table. Oh how nice, I said, hearing my thick Minnahhsooohtan accent lining up with theirs. I turned them down only because I have work to do, over here on the love seat, where I’m writing this instead of doing the work because coffee shops always make me want to write about them.

Small town coffee shops buzz differently. The customer’s faces stay the same, but are peppered with new ones–people from all over, here for the lakes and the trees and the very very green everything. We do hang onto our vowels here, long and thick. Those that drop their vowels quickly stand out. They seem to be drinking in the sweetness of people who are not often simple-minded, but are beautifully simple. People who revel in the ordinary, because that’s what is required and then accepted and then celebrated. Small towns are surrounded by so much country. People say there’s nothing to do, but what you learn if you’re here long enough is that there is everything to do if go out and do it.

Walk in the tall grass, study the birds, go to the benefit for the lady with cancer even if you don’t know her that well, count the deer, wave just because you’re passing by, go fishing, go swimming, help your friends, rock on the front porch…

Slow down for the warm coffee cake with whipped cream and the rich dark roast. Trees reflected off a mirror lake. Rolling fields brown to black with planted soil, a tractor combing rows in the distance. The sun changing the colors of the world as it leaves us for the night.

You can build something in it, because of it and for yourself. You can build a life or a house or a community full of authentic connection, story-telling inspiration, and art.

It’s already there.

Community can be so many things. We get to choose how to affect it, and that’s a treasure. Fill it with light or frown at what it is and turn away with a shrug. What it is, is beautiful already.

This is the 137th installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. There are really no rules, besides Just Write! (Then link back to this post in your post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

Also. Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word?